


such a sweet epiphany

by everybodylies



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, Post Reichenbach, Pre-Slash, blink and you'll miss it Jim Moriarty/Sebastian Moran
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-29
Updated: 2012-10-29
Packaged: 2017-11-17 06:49:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/548775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everybodylies/pseuds/everybodylies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All Sherlock wants is to, just once, be surprised.</p>
            </blockquote>





	such a sweet epiphany

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on the LJ kink meme for the prompt: All Sherlock wants is to, just once, be surprised.

Was it really asking for so much? Was it really asking so much for Moriarty to have, in his employ, men with above average intelligence who didn't use locks that were pickable with a bobby pin and who could recognize a tail when they saw one? Was it _really?_

Apparently it was. Moriarty's organization sans Moriarty turns out to be, essentially, a chicken running around with its head cut off. Moriarty had been the only brains behind the operation, while his men did the mindless grunt work. These days, the men, spread throughout the European continent, were drinking away a rather lavish paycheck, received several days before their boss's suicide. In fact, none of them would need to be eliminated if it weren't for the fact that the paycheck was accompanied by an agreement to kill Sherlock Holmes and his friends if it was ever revealed that he was still alive.

For Sherlock, it's simplicity itself to follow one of the men for a day, study his daily schedule, then break into his flat when he's not there, plant evidence linking him to an old unsolved murder (which he actually did commit), and call in a tip to the local police force. Rinse and repeat. (He decided not to kill them because 1. murder is messy, he's learned and 2. he doesn't think John would approve of 67 counts of not-entirely-necessary first degree murder.) He always gets in and out without any trouble. No neighbors ever catch him bending by the doorknob. No one ever comes home early.

He knows he should be thankful, relieved. Every minute he doesn't have to spend taking down Moriarty's web is another minute closer to his return home, to John and to his work… but sometimes he just feels like screaming. Is asking for a bit of a challenge really so much?

All Sherlock wants is to, just once, be surprised.

Does he miss Moriarty? No, that's illogical. It's stupid to miss somebody who tried to kill you and your friends. And then again, he never did have that urge to shoot a wall when Moriarty was still around.

He hears through the grapevine about a Sebastian Moran, deadly assassin and Moriarty's right hand man, and Sherlock figures this Moran is his best bet for the excitement he craves. But just like the rest of Moriarty's men, Moran ends up disappointing him.

Sherlock finds Moran, or rather, Moran finds him, when he jogs into an alleyway to change disguises and part of a shadow of a dumpster detaches itself and corners him. Sherlock readies his fists for a fight, but Moran puts his hands up in surrender.

"I don't want to hurt you, Mr. Holmes," Moran says. His face is battle-scarred, pockmarked by old shrapnel wounds, and his hair has been shaved into a harsh crew cut. Reluctantly, Sherlock unclenches his fists, feeling oh so conflicted. Does he or does he not want a fight? (No, obviously because it's so irrational, so unsound, but at the same time he longs for the action, and he feels like screaming again.)

"Who are you?"

"You know who I am."

Annoyed, Sherlock crosses his arms and taps his foot. "Then what do you want?" he asks.

Moran swallows and pauses before answering. "I am… here to tell you that I am no longer a threat to you. I am not going to try to kill you or any of your friends. And in return, I ask you to do the same for me."

Sherlock squints at Moran. "How do I know you're telling the truth?"

There's a bit of sadness in the man's eyes. "Because I am a mercenary. I do the jobs that I am paid for." He takes a long choking breath that betrays his emotions. "And I am no longer being paid."

Sherlock sighs, feeling let down by the one person he was counting on, and shakes Moran's outstretched hand.

He spends the next few days on his toes, expecting some kind of double cross from Moran, but it never comes, and the days stretch on.

All Sherlock wants is to, just once, be surprised.

It's hateful, how the world is. It spins, round and round in the same boring orbit day after day after day, and the _one_ time someone with his intelligence shows up, he turns out to be a homicidal maniac who kills himself. And then the world goes back to that boring little orbit, day after day after day…

Until this one night in late November, when he returns to the flat he's renting and finds the door unlocked and the lights on.

All Sherlock wants is to, just once, be surprised. (And he almost takes this sentiment back in that moment, but, then again, he doesn't because the last time his heart had been beating this fast was months ago, when he was on top of a roof, ready to jump.)

Quickly, he mentally composes a list of the people who could possibly be behind that door. None of them are particularly desirable, and all of them are probably trying to kill him.

His first instinct is to turn and bolt, but… the door is unlocked and the lights are on. Whoever is waiting for him isn't planning any kind of ambush. Maybe this person wants a confrontation, a challenge.

Sherlock wants a challenge, too.

Though he knows that it's a bad idea, that he's probably walking into a trap, he reaches for the knob.

And when he opens that door, he finds a face with a name that wasn't on his list, not even close. His mouth droops open slightly, speechless.

"Mycroft slipped up," John offers as an explanation, "Referred to you in the present tense. It wasn't too hard to track you down after that." He gives Sherlock a pointed look, and Sherlock sees anger in those eyes, but perhaps a bit of forgiveness, too. "You're getting sloppy."

Of course, he was getting sloppy. What was the point of being neat when the people he was hunting were so asinine, so blind he was tempted to start giving them hints?

He gets a bit of deja vu here, and for a moment his mind returns to the back of a cab, and he's sitting next to a man who he's only just met, yet they've agreed to share a flat together, problem? and the man's goading him. "The police don't consult amateurs," he says, and Sherlock knows he shouldn't, really knows, because they call him socially inept, but he's not an idiot, he sees how his deductions can offend regular people, but he can't resist because he's a show-off and that's what they do. So he tells John Watson about his psychosomatic limp, about his brother and the drinking, and when he finishes he can't even look at the man's face because he's certain he's screwed it up now, and he can't stop thinking about how promising this one was, about how difficult it's going to be to find another potential flatmate, when the man says the last words that Sherlock was expecting, and surprises him.

"Extraordinary," Sherlock murmurs, an echo across time and space. "Quite extraordinary."


End file.
